The mayor of Lancaster said this week that sensitivity training is needed after a city commisioner made public comments that the mayor said were offensive to Jews and homosexuals. Mayor R. Rex Parris said that Stan Muhammad of the city's Neighborhood Vitalization Commission made the statements at a July 20 rally and that "it was not a city event, he was not representing the city" when he said them. A video posted to YouTube of Muhammad's comments show the commissioner speaking into a hand-held microphone at a lectern using a derogatory word for homosexuals.

When video surfaced this summer of Riley Cooper using racial slurs at a concert, the Philadelphia Eagles receiver apologized profusely. He met with the media and looked to be on the verge of tears. He briefly left the team to seek sensitivity training. He came back on bended knee. That hasn't been the case so far with Miami guard Richie Incognito, who has been suspended indefinitely by the Dolphins for conduct detrimental to the team. Teammate Jonathan Martin provided at least one voice message and text messages, allegedly from Incognito, that are harassing and include racial slurs.

Expect a kinder, gentler Missouri State Fair from here on out. This week, the Missouri State Fair Commission ordered that officials and contractors hired by the state's rodeo association -- which would include cowboys and clowns -- complete sensitivity training before they are allowed to perform at the state fair again. What could prompt such a thing? The jeers of a clown. In a provocative bit of satire that went viral, a rodeo clown in Sedalia put a broomstick up his pants, donned a Barack Obama mask and asked the crowd whether it wanted to see a bull run over the president.

Expect a kinder, gentler Missouri State Fair from here on out. This week, the Missouri State Fair Commission ordered that officials and contractors hired by the state's rodeo association -- which would include cowboys and clowns -- complete sensitivity training before they are allowed to perform at the state fair again. What could prompt such a thing? The jeers of a clown. In a provocative bit of satire that went viral, a rodeo clown in Sedalia put a broomstick up his pants, donned a Barack Obama mask and asked the crowd whether it wanted to see a bull run over the president.

A trolley operator who ordered eight preschoolers, including six handicapped children, and four adult chaperones off a trolley at the wrong station during a rainstorm has been ordered to undergo sensitivity training in dealing with handicapped people and the elderly, trolley officials announced Friday. The decision to require the special training for the unnamed operator was the result of a San Diego Trolley staff inquiry.

The Oxnard Elementary School District board should undergo cultural sensitivity training and provide a Spanish-language interpreter at its meetings, a Latino teachers group said Monday. The Oxnard chapter of the state Assn. of Mexican American Educators recommended in a letter to the school board that each of the five trustees--three of whom are white and two Latina--attend training sessions about Latino culture.

Beset with charges of discrimination, Poway Unified School District has been searching for ways to improve the racial climate on its 43 campuses. District officials say sensitivity training at problem schools is already under way, beginning the painful process of examining the cultural fissures between administrators, teachers, parents and students. Poway officials uniformly predict a better racial climate, given time and patience. Not all parents share the district's optimism.

A low-key effort to help gay and lesbian students has rekindled a simmering debate over the role of schools in dealing with teen-agers' sexual orientation. At issue are two school-sponsored sensitivity workshops on sexual diversity for Long Beach school employees. The first was in January for counselors, the second on Nov. 11 for principals and nurses. The idea was to train district employees in helping and counseling homosexual students, and in discouraging insensitive actions or remarks.

In Robert A. Jones' article, "Yes, There's Life After Prop. 13" (Feb. 26), he referred to people who owned their homes prior to 1975 as the "geezer crowd." I am included in that crowd since I bought my home in 1963, and I strongly resent the implications of that term. My Funk & Wagnalls defines geezer as "a queer old person," so I'm astonished that a newspaper that is usually so politically correct would allow the use of such a discriminatory and disparaging term by one of its writers.

New York City transit police officers will begin new sensitivity training next week, the result of the shooting of a black undercover officer by two white colleagues who thought he was a mugger. Police groups representing minorities will work with the department on the training, Transit Police Chief Michael F. O'Connor said. Officer Derwin Pannell, 26, was shot on a dimly lighted subway platform. He was in serious but guarded condition at Brookdale Hospital with a bullet in his neck.

The mayor of Lancaster said this week that sensitivity training is needed after a city commisioner made public comments that the mayor said were offensive to Jews and homosexuals. Mayor R. Rex Parris said that Stan Muhammad of the city's Neighborhood Vitalization Commission made the statements at a July 20 rally and that "it was not a city event, he was not representing the city" when he said them. A video posted to YouTube of Muhammad's comments show the commissioner speaking into a hand-held microphone at a lectern using a derogatory word for homosexuals.

Chris Culliver, the San Francisco 49ers cornerback who made headlines with anti-gay remarks, will take sensitivity training and education classes after the Super Bowl. Culliver will eventually become a volunteer with the Trevor Project, which provides crisis and suicide intervention for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. “He's so passionate about youth and people being comfortable with who they are and accepted by all,” Culliver's public relations representative, Theodore Palmer, told the Associated Press.

Harder than it looks Re " Making connections ," Column One, March 21 Making connections by teaching elders to use computers is a wonderful idea. However, I seriously object to the "sensitivity training" given to the university students in preparation for their teaching experience. Simulations - using props such as earplugs, gloves, tape and diapers - do not provide a sense of the "lived experience" of being older. Many in the disability community reject these simulations as demeaning.

Santa Monica police are investigating an alleged racial incident at Santa Monica High School in which an African American student said fellow members of the wrestling team chained him to a locker and hung a noose around a brown wrestling dummy. He also told police that those teammates made racially charged remarks. Although the incident allegedly happened more than a month ago, it was reported to the Santa Monica Police Department on June 21 by the student and his mother, Victoria Gray.

The nurse just thought she was bringing a refreshing dessert — a Popsicle — to a new mother. She didn't expect the grandmother, shocked, to stop her and intercept the treat. The cold was taboo for Shu-Fen Chen. After emigrating from Taiwan, Chen gave birth to her first child in a Los Angeles hospital. Her cultural beliefs say a new mother shouldn't touch anything cold for a month after birth, or she will suffer headaches later in life, she says. Eventually, Chen moved to Irvine, home to one of the largest Chinese American populations in the nation and once home to Irvine Regional Hospital, where she had her second child.

Employees of a Monterey County government department at the center of widely circulated anti-immigrant cartoon will receive racial sensitivity training. The cartoon, which was posted on the county's internal e-mail system last Monday, featured a mock photo of a sombrero-wearing bandito on a "Mexifornia" driver's license. It was traced to the radio shop in the Information Technology Department after one of an estimated 3,200 public employees who received it complained.

Employees of a Monterey County government department at the center of widely circulated anti-immigrant cartoon will receive racial sensitivity training. The cartoon, which was posted on the county's internal e-mail system last Monday, featured a mock photo of a sombrero-wearing bandito on a "Mexifornia" driver's license. It was traced to the radio shop in the Information Technology Department after one of an estimated 3,200 public employees who received it complained.

Re "The View From a Wheelchair," Dec. 2: I need my walker, and I must sit frequently. I'm in Westchester. Strangers I encounter always are compassionate, thank God. Gelson's Marina market has an electric wheelchair/shopping cart that is considerably easier to use than those in other markets. Once, when another shopper needed it, the manager had an employee help me into a wheelchair shopping cart. She pushed me through the large market, reaching and putting into the cart everything I needed.

The California Assembly passed a bill Monday to establish gay and lesbian sensitivity training for foster parents, but only after an acrimonious debate that exposed some of the cultural and political fissures regarding homosexuality that divide the state's elected leadership. Entering into the last two weeks of the legislative session, legislators also approved a measure that would strengthen state abortion law and allow nurses to prescribe so-called morning after drugs.

Postal workers in Fullerton worked in a "tense and stressful environment" over the last year because of "abusive management styles," according to a report prepared by the U.S. Postal Service office of inspector general. The study, written in May but obtained by The Times this week, recommended special training for Fullerton management in how to relate to workers.